Strategy in TECH...
In a telephone interview today, new Thiel Audio CEO John Wittman told us that the company “struck a chord with me personally,” virtually compelling him to take over as CEO after the owners’ invited him to look at the company last winter. Over the course of an interview that went on for more than a hour, Wittman candidly shared his thoughts and perspectives in an enthusiastic and – to the degree he felt appropriate – open manner.
Major New York Metro & Mid-Atlantic sales representative company Audio Associates has been selected by both Bay Audio and Wilson Electronics to represent their brands. In addition to this, Audio Associates separately announced that it has promoted long-time salesman George Christianis to the position of Sales Manager for the company.
Thiel Audio dealers were surprised to receive an email Wednesday from the company announcing plans to – in their words – “revitalize” the storied audio brand. We last reported in April that the company had finally acknowledged to its dealers that it was moving its operations to Nashville, TN – after 38 years in Lexington, KY. This acknowledgement came one week after we reported to Strata-gee readers that the company planned to move.
Since then, the company has been silent. Now, this announcement sets out a new agenda for change – and it is an ambitious one.
Gibson Brands (née Gibson Guitars) announced last week that it has opened a showroom in Tokyo, Japan that it calls a “pioneering music lifestyle concept showroom.” Although Gibson Brands owns many different brands, this particular showroom focuses on just three of them: Gibson Guitars, TEAC and Onkyo.
When the history of Monster Products is written some day in the future, there will be many legitimate highlights for their historian to ponder. First and foremost among these will be the fact that CEO Noel Lee (known as the Head Monster) virtually single-handedly created an industry when in the late 70s he popularized step-up, higher quality speaker cables that independent specialty retailers pushed like crazy over zip cord because it was much more profitable for them (and for Lee). And even though Monster Cable was more expensive for consumers, a clever Monster-created retail display demonstrated to them that they could indeed hear the difference with their own ears.
But we’re pretty certain one scene will not make Monster’s corporate history highlight reel – the company’s failure to continue to capitalize on its partnership with Beats by Dr. Dre. That partnership dissolved some two-plus years ago…with Beats going on to be purchased by Apple recently for $3.2 billion. Monster’s share of that eye-popping windfall: $0.
Sony Corp., the troubled Japanese giant consumer electronics company, has launched an internal early retirement program in a bid to cut overhead in its headquarters. The company has already announced major worldwide staff cutbacks, but it hopes this new incentive for headquarters staff will cut administrative costs by about 30%.
Is Dolby’s new Atmos format the next frontier in surround sound processing? Or will it merit a repeat of Paul Klipsch’s famous line: “Ho, hum, another breakthrough”?
You’d certainly think the former after prowling the aisles at the just-concluded CE Week in NYC. Both Onkyo and Pioneer showed prototype Atmos-enabled A/V receivers (complete with demonstrations under what must be called “challenging” conditions) while Yamaha, Denon, Marantz, and Integra all indicate they’ll be ready with an array of products in late Q3 or early Q4 this year. But will Paul Klipsch be proven prophetic once again, even if posthumously? That remains to be seen.
[Read more…] about A Deeper Dive into the World of Dolby Atmos; Is This Audio’s 3D?
Core Brands, LLC, a division of Nortek, Inc., announced Tuesday that Atlantic Integrated, a Rockleigh, NJ-based sales representative company, has been awarded most of its brands for representation in the New York Metropolitan region and Fairfield County, CT. This appointment is effective immediately and represents a realignment of the brands under one rep firm.
One of the big themes at CE Week 2014 was the unofficial official rollout of Dolby’s latest surround sound technology – Atmos. Both Onkyo and Pioneer intro’d, displayed, and demo’d Atmos systems. However, since both companies showed prototypes, what we heard was only an approximation of what the final production units should sound like.
We participated in demos of, and closely listened to, BOTH the Onkyo and the Pioneer Atmos systems.
At times during CE Week 2014 we felt as though we were caught in some kind of a clash of the unknown Greek gods – Atmos vs. Heos. In one corner – Pioneer and Onkyo announced, displayed, and demonstrated the all-new 7+ channel Dolby Atmos surround sound systems…with a fair amount of fanfare. In the other corner, calmly confident Denon executives showed HEOS, the company’s new wireless multi-room Sonos-killing (they hope) system. Who would win the day???
